Asbury College Program Gets Support from Thomson

Broadcast students at Asbury College, in Wilmore, Ky., will once again get a chance to attend the Olympics. Since 1984, the school has sent its most highly trained students to assist the international broadcasters televise the game. This year, 56 students enrolled in the Media Communications department will make the trip to Beijing, China for the 2008 Games. The students at Asbury have been trained on gear from Thomson and other companies since 2005, according to the Paris-based company with offices in Nevada City, Calif.

Asbury“s Media Communications department produces sports and entertainment telecasts in and around the surrounding region and is now building a new 40-foot HD-capable truck, outfitted with a Thomson Grass Valley Kayak HD 250 switcher. The vehicle is expected to roll in August and begin producing content for the local cable TV system. It will be used to train students for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

“This year“s students will begin leaving for Beijing on July 15 while others will be ready for the start of the games on Aug. 1”, said Jim Owens, chairman of the Asbury College Media Communications department, and regular contributor to Television Broadcast.

Upperclassmen and women in the Asbury program work in paid entry-level professional broadcast positions--from operating cameras to editing footage--for various broadcasters at the Olympics. They have done so for nine Olympic Games. In 1996, for the Atlanta Olympic Games, Asbury College sent 173 students to support the worldwide broadcast, while about 75 students were in Salt Lake City, Utah for the Winter Olympic Games in 2002.

One West Virginia station is helping to prime the employee pool of the future. WBOY TV, the NBC affiliate serving Clarksburg, Fairmont and Morgantown, W.V., donated $1,000 to Robert C. Byrd High School broadcasting department, according to a brief at